It is 1906, and few in the teeming metropolis of New York City have heard of, let alone seen, the hugely wealthy man who controls so many of their lives. Few, too, would have heard of the extraordinary events that took place at the Paris Opera House more than twenty years before -- a story as dramatic as any of the operas themselves: a tale of love and murder and passion, the heartbreaking legend of the Phantom of the Opera...It all began in 1882, when Antoinette Giry, Maitresse du Corps de Ballet at the Opera, took her small child, Meg, to a carnival. And there, to her horror, she saw a caged, filthy, manacled creature whose tormented eyes shone from a grotesquely deformed face. Overcome by pity, Madame Giry freed him, cured his wounds and finally let him find a dwelling place in the seven below ground levels of the labyrinthine Opera. The creature -- Erik -- was to become the Phantom of the Opera, his hideous visage masking a brilliant mind. He is a magician, an artist, a musician, and lover. But when he tries to lure the object of his adoration to his underground domain -- it must end in tragedy.
